the feet of the Countess of Mansfort, and beg her to return to an old friend, who loved her father, and who esteemed her? Is this the way you would dispose of your pupil, or push him on in the world? Could you see me now, you would say, no.

I write to you from the garden, which I myself now cultivate, and from a trelliced arbour over which I have myself trained a vine with the most luxuriant broad foliage that ever shielded a philosopher, or nursed poet. The leaves are really superb, and the grapes hang like jewels through the interstices, promising glorious treasure when their time is fulfilled. The shade is as complete as what forms it is beautiful, and only perforated here and there to let in glimpses of the river as it runs sparkling by. In short, my alcove is thoroughly German; just what I wanted, and not the worse for not being made to my hands.

I looked for a seat here, but could not find such a thing:-so, as I could not bring the vine to the seat, we brought the seat to the vine. I say we, for it cost old Hendrick, his daughter, the pastor and me, a week's sweet labour-for sweet it was.

Would you now send me back to court?

We have also got the house into better order-at least part of it for to restore it entirely, was so

far beyond my means, that I abandoned all notion of doing more than making the few rooms, not ruined, tolerably comfortable. I even would not go to the expense, at least immediately, of clearing away the scattered fragments I mentioned to you as lying all around, speaking mementos of what had been, and what to others may be to come. I have, however, expelled my twilight subjects, the bats and owls, and wait myself in the political twilight between reform and old prejudices, which now is gleaming around us. I wait and abide the time.

KARL R.

I hear from Herzstein sometimes. He is thoroughly formed upon the old models-Tell, Sydney, and Hampden. I balance your letters against one another. I mentioned Quartre Tours; I must do him the justice to say he is infinitely more bearable. Why? I suppose because he has, as it were, taken to me. O Vanity! where art thou not to be found, when thou dwellest in a ruined schloss in a corner of Bohemia? In truth, however, he seems thoroughly a man of honourable mind, and even of candour; for he allows a man may differ with him on politics, and yet be honest.

LETTER IX.

Winter in reply.-English Ministers with a view to reform. -True character of Madame Roland.-Advice as to Herzstein.

I LIKE your letter, and reply to it on the instant. It is more reasonable than I expected from a disciple of Herzstein.

I am glad my revolutionary picture was not thrown away upon you, and that you see the French patriots in their true light. You say yourself you would not revolutionize Germany as France was revolutionized, by blood and cruelty; but by public opinion, and a change of maxims and manners. Can any thing be more reasonable? Do I oppose this? No! the whole bent and virtue of philosophy is to renovate right modes of thinking and acting, when they have got wrong; which cannot be done unless blind prejudices are destroyed. But to destroy prejudice I would not destroy

the state. I would trust to time and reason; as

you say you would.

The vice of the French patriots was, that they ran headlong into first principles, as if there never had been laws, or a constitution in France; as if their twenty millions of men, women, and children, had just met together, from God knows what caves and forests that had hid them, and had agreed, for the first time, to form a social compact, and enact a constitution. They found that the laws and customs of a thousand years stood in the way; so, in their eagerness after regeneration, they levelled the whole at a stroke, and, as Mirabeau himself said, overset in one evening what it had taken ages to concoct.

You will say the concoction was bad. Be it so, as to some parts of it. But would it be wise on that account, to annihilate all, before you had even thought of any thing to supply its place? Hear again what the contemporary Dumont, who at first was their great admirer, says to this. "Il n'y avoit pas moyen de réfléchir, d'objecter, de demander du temps; une contagion sentimentale entrâinait les

How wise, as well as how beautiful, to destroy an immense body politick in a fit of senti

ment ! “Le lendemain on commença a réfléchir sur ce qu'on avoit fait, et les mécontentemens percèrent de toutes parts. Mirabeau et Sièyes, chacun par des raisons particulières, condamnoient avec raison ces folies de l'enthousiasme. Voilà bien nos François,' disait le premier; ils sont un mois entier à disputer des syllabes, et dans une nuit ils renversent tout l'ancien ordre de la monarchie.""

The rational part of mankind have long agreed with Dumont; but too many are still irrational, and, either from folly or wickedness, mock the beacon which ought to enlighten them. How many hundreds in England, as well as Germany, are not at this moment doing the same thing, with the same patriotism in their mouths, and the same mischief in their hearts! Resistance to the laws, or what is the same thing, refusal to pay the taxes, has been recommended, as I told you, by the highest ranks. Open, loud, and unequivocal threats of destruction are denounced by the people, against that part of the constitution, the House of Peers, which was created for the very purpose of controlling their

excesses.

True, the House has its defenders--but they are